


The Walls That Hold Me Inside

by especiallythezefronposter



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil has a hard time coping with Clint's death and Steve has trouble adjusting to life in the 21th century. Maybe they can help eachother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Walls That Hold Me Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Set after The Avengers. Clint died instead of Phil, but that's how this one goes for canon divergence.

Steve tried to act like he was really paying attention to what Tony was saying - something about ways to improve their suits -, but actually he could only stare at the Starkpads Tony had handed out in the beginning of the meeting and was now using to show sketched details of some bracelet he had designed for Natasha. On those twenty square centimeters he could install at least six different kinds of weapons and other gadgets and it made Steve wonder what could have happened in the years he had slept. A bracelet had been a simple thing boys gave away and girls wore, not something that could open doors, copy computer files and shoot bad guys if you told it to do so, sketches were supposed to be drawn on paper with a pencil, not with some advanced computer program and 'computers' shouldn't be thinner than cardboard and faster than a normal human brain could process. Everything used to be so simple, and Steve didn't see why that had to be changed. Tony was a complicated person, and he he had drinking and bonding issues and couldn't possibly be as happy as he pretended to be. Complicated wasn't a good thing.

Steve looked up when he heard his name. Tony seemed to be waiting for an answer on some question Steve had missed. 'Excuse me?', Steve said softly, trying to ignore the stares of his teammates and Agent Coulson.

'I said I thought you wouldn't want any changes to your suit and I don't think that would be necessary anyway, even though some special tools in your shield wouldn't hurt.' He quickly shook his head. 'No no, I'm sorry, the way you fight is alright, no need to change.' He didn't even wait for Steve to answer and pushed a button on the small device in his hand to move on to the next sketch. 

The silence in the room became heavier when an image of Clint's bow appeared. Tony quickly pushed the button some more times until a complicated drawing of their communication system during missions appeared. The only one in the room who seemed to actually listen to the next ten minutes of presentation was Bruce, even though Phil, must have understood most of it too. He just wasn't paying attention, and it took some time before Steve could see why. He was still looking at a full sketch of Clint, showing improved protection in the chest- and neck area. he zoomed in on the spot where Clint had been stabbed by Loki, now almost a half a year ago, watching the added layer of metal that could have saved his life. While Steve was watching, Phil took a deep, shaky breath and swiped back to the drawing of their communication system, frowning. 'In what circumstances do the speakers stop working?', he asked, trying to distract himself. 'Are they waterproof? Do they malfunction from a certain distance?'

The rest of the meeting consisted of an unintelligible conversation between Phil, Bruce and Tony while Steve tried and failed to ignore the Starkpad in his lap and Natasha stared out of the window, expression unreadable. Thor was still in Asgard, and Steve didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing. Maybe he would've been able to lighten up the mood, or maybe he would've made it worse. Thor was worse at living in the present than Steve was, but he could escape. Steve wished he could stay in the 40's to just come back whenever this world needed him. He wished he could go back to Bucky and Peggy and everything he'd left behind when he had finally gotten into the army. That made him wonder which one of them had lived the worst life. Bucky had died way to young, but he would never have to see this horrible present, because seeing it change slowly and not being able to stop it like Peggy had would've been even more frustrating than being dropped in this world as abruptly as Steve was.

'Steve. You still don't want your own Starkpad? I could install some drawing apps. It's much easier on a tablet.'

Steve looked up and saw the meeting was over. Phil and Natasha had already left and Bruce was waiting for Tony in the doorway. 'No - No, thank you.' He stood up and felt like he had to say something, compliment Tony on his presentation, maybe, but the words got stuck in his throat. He left the room without saying anything. He didn't even apologize to Bruce when he bumped in to him on the way out.

He was walking towards the lift when someone called his name. 'Steve.' Phil's voice was soft and friendly, which meant he wasn't going to tell Steve he had to pay attention in meetings or something, but what else was there to say? Steve turned around and slowly walked back to the place were Phil stood. Phil started walking when Steve had caught up with him. They entered his office at the end of the hallway and Phil motioned for Steve to sit down, walking over to the coffee machine, or robot, as Steve saw it. 'Would you like a cup of coffee?', Phil asked. He sounded tired, exhausted even.  
'No, thank you,' Steve answered.

Phil pushed some buttons and the coffee-robot made the coffee three times quicker than Peggy ever had, and she had been trained at making herself coffee. Steve sighed.

Phil sat down, warming his hands to his coffee-mug. 'How are you, Steve?', he asked friendly and it reminded Steve of the psychologist he had had to see in his first weeks in 'the present'.

'I'm fine,' Steve said softly. The psychologist had never liked that, because she had known Steve wasn't fine.

'And how's living in the 21st century?', Phil went on. Even more like the psychologist.

Steve tried to smile. 'Different.' He tried to say it as if it was a good thing. He failed miserably at both.

'Whenever you look at new inventions or things that have changed since... the accident, you seem so unhappy. You get this look in your eyes. It's always there, actually, but it intensifies. If you think there is anything we can do to make it easier for you, please tell me. Maybe you need to talk about it, that always helped when Cl -' He broke of mid-sentence and looked down at his mug. 'I'm sorry,' he said after a while. 'It's just...' His voice died away.

It stayed quiet for a long time, until Steve felt like he would explode if it lasted any longer. 'Were you and him... together?', Steve asked softly. Maybe Phil needed to talk about his problems himself.

'I don't know,' he sighed. 'Maybe, if we had gotten a chance, some more time... It could've worked out. We both weren't the most ideal partners, but we... we could've made it work.' He sighed again.

Steve almost smiled, it was a sad, pained smile, but it still was a smile. 'I sometimes think about Peggy and I. We would've been dead by now, but we would've had children and grandchildren, a home and a past. If I hadn't crashed that plane in the sea, if I hadn't been Captain America... Bucky would've grown old with us, but we would've grown old in a nation forged by Schmidt. I don't say Clint's dead was a good thing, but without his sacrifice, it could've been different. We would still be fighting against Loki and thousands and thousands of others would have died. Maybe you would've been one of them, or maybe Clint, or someone else on the team... What I have learned since I came here is that there are no options when it comes to the future. There's only one way, and that's the way things are now, the way they will become. We shouldn't dwell on all the rest, because we can't do anything about it. We never could.'

Phil just nodded and then Steve thought of something. He took the cards out of his pockets and looked at them for another second before he gave them back to Phil. 'I signed them,' he said, stating the obvious and Phil smiled when he looked up.

'Thank you,' he said, reaching over the desk to touch Steve's hand and deciding to leave his hand there, on top of Steve's. 'Do you think we could make this work, Steve?'

Steve smiled instead of saying yes, and he figured that if he was going to have a nice life in the present, this was a good place to start.

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Where The Streets Have No Name by U2


End file.
